one,
and the three Americans, went in her.

"You are a noble fellow," said Mr. Desmond, pausing an instant, and
catching at the captain's hand; "and I was but a fool to--"

"Pass on," was the reply: "there is no time to bandy compliments."

The order to shove off had passed the captain's lips when his glance
chanced to light upon me, as I leaned, dumb with terror, just behind him
against the vessel's bulwarks.

"Hold on a moment!" he cried. "Here is a youngster whose weight will not
hurt you;" and he fairly lifted me over, and dropped me gently into the
boat, whispering as he did so: "Remember me, Ned, to thy father and mother
should I not see them again."

There was now only the small boat, capable of safely containing but eight
persons, and how, it was whispered among us--how, in addition to the two
seamen already in her, can she take off Lieutenant Arguellas, M. Dupont,
the remaining colored man, the four seamen, and Captain Starkey? They
were, however, all speedily embarked except the captain.

"Can she bear another?" he asked, and although his voice was firm as ever,
his countenance, I noticed, was ashy pale, yet full as ever of unswerving
resolution.

"We must, and will, sir, since it's you; but we are dangerously
overcrowded now, especially with yon ugly customers swimming round us."

"Stay one moment; I can not quit the ship while there's a living soul on
board." He stepped hastily forward, and presently reappeared at the
gangway with the still senseless body of the lieutenant's servant in his
arms, and dropped it over the side into the boat. There was a cry of
indignation, but it was of no avail. The boat's rope the next instant was
cast into the water. "Now pull for your lives!" The oars, from the
instinct of self-preservation, instantly fell into the water, and the boat
sprang off. Captain Starkey, now that all except himself were clear of the
burning ship, gazed eagerly with eyes shaded with his hand in the
direction of the shore. Presently he hailed the headmost boat. "We must
have been seen from the shore long ago, and pilot-boats ought to be coming
out, though I don't see any. If you meet one, bid him be smart: there may
be a chance yet." All this scene, this long agony, which has taken me so
many words to depict very imperfectly from my own recollection, and those
of others, only lasted, I was afterward assured by Mr. Desmond, eight
minutes from the embarkation of Senora Arguellas till the last